Friends travel with us on the Loop! South Carolina, June 7 to 17

Tuesday June 7 we departed for Isle of Hope Marina near Savannah.  Nice scenery along the way.  The salt marshes are really beautiful.  We would have liked to anchor out but the weather is so hot we would need to run the generator all night for air conditioning.  And I am not comfortable with that as the tidal currents move the direction of the boat more than the wind and we would not want the wind to be off the stern with the generator running.  I guess we are not acclimated to this hot weather yet!

This was just an overnight stop as we plan to spend time in Savannah when we travel south again in the Fall.  It was a 94 mile run so we took the speed up for a few hours and burned some diesel as well as "cleaned out" the turbo chargers on the engines.  So we arrived right at closing time for the marina.  Had a great grilled dinner, then washed the boat and got to bed fairly early for an early morning departure.  A nice marina here.

And a nice sunset.  We never tire of these.

 

Wed morning we left early for Beaufort.  Leaving early with a nice sunrise too!

This was to be a 53 mile trip but it turned 60ish.  I was enjoying the morning and my coffee travelling the ICW and wasn't paying close attention and went up the Savannah River instead of across it to the Fields Cut.   But we got to see a huge container ship on the river so all was not lost!  From Julie's perspective in salon.

And from mine at the upper helm.

Note to self- Never assume the main channel is the route...look at your chart instead of enjoying your coffee! 

We still arrived near slack tide in Beaufort which was the original plan.  Beaufort has a very pretty historic home district.  It was great walking around and seeing the beautiful antebellum architecture.
It was HOT, HOT , HOT though and we were soon ready for showers!  We enjoyed two nice days here.  Marina had a courtesy car that we used to go to BI-LO, the closest supermarket to restock a bit.  It was nice to have a car to do this and the discount card on the key chain saved us some money too....thanks Beaufort City Marina!  We really enjoyed this stop. Some of the beautiful homes and flowers.  The live oaks are huge!

 

 

 We left Beaufort at 8AM, slack tide, and the first bridge reminded us both of Tom's train set we still have from childhood (and we still have it in our climate controlled 5'x10' storage unit).

There are some very long docks to get to deep water here with 8 foot tides!

 

We arrived in Charleston Harbor Marina (actually Mount Pleasant, SC across the river) mid afternoon on Friday. 

 







There is even a cruise ship staged here for a 4 or 5 day Bahamas trip.

What a challenge to dock in the currents here!  They were running at a 45 degree angle to the docks so one could not really back straight into the current.  Cross currents are really tough!  First I overshot the assigned slip due to not being able to find it, then we were in a position to be "trapped" in a corner with the current pushing us.  This is when large props, twin engines and power are the ticket!  Spun around with ample power applied, and then the dockhand was at the assigned slip so we could find it.  Spun around again and backed in, quickly I might add as one cannot stop moving with a strong current.  Julie coached me with clearances etc and all was good. A local commented "you did the right thing there captain, you were in control and regrouped and reshot the slip.  Too many get out of position and try to recover without turning around, try to force it and crash".  This person and spouse happened to be Gold Loopers and had I read their blog a couple years ago. Small world again!
The view from the laundry room.

Another view from the marina office area.  Sunset after washing the boat.

In the morning on Sat, I talked to the "mayor of C dock", a local who had been on C dock for 17 years and he said there are plenty of crashes in the marina due to the currents.  He did say mostly sailboats as the single screw and not a lot of power make it more difficult for them.  The locals tell us it is July weather already with heat indexes in the low 100's forecasted for Sun and Mon.  Hopefully there will be chairs at the pool!

 

Mike and Susan arrived mid afternoon on Sat as planned and we almost immediately hit the pool.  It was really hot so the pool was a welcome relief!  It is so nice to see old friends from Michigan!

On Sunday, the forecast was for heat index of 105, so we decided not to tour historic Charleston, so Mike and I went to the naval museum at Patriot's Point while the ladies enjoyed the pool.  It is comprised of the WWII submarine Clamagore, the destroyer Laffey and the aircraft carrier Yorktown.  We toured all three and it was all quite interesting.  For you W Michigan folks, it was interesting to see that the Silversides sub that is in Muskegon was the third sub listed on the "kill" sheet which listed the subs in order of tonnage or number of vessels sunk.  The Laffey is known as the "destroyer that could not be sunk".  It was the victim of a kamikaze attack and was hit by six planes and  four bombs.  There was a good film in a small theatre aboard that was done by the History Channel on the attack.  Unbelievable bravery. And the ship was repaired and placed back in service after the war. The Yorktown was an interesting tour too.  One of it's last memorable missions was the recovery of Apollo 8 and her crew.  It is around 900 feet long, and is probably dwarfed by the modern carrier but was impressive nonetheless.

 

 

 



We grilled salmon from the local Harris Teeter, fresh sockeye.  It was great but hot for grilling.

But sometimes a plan doesn't always work as designed.  We did not have cedar planked salmon as planned....a little too much preheating perhaps?

On Monday we took the water taxi over to Charleston to view the historic sites.  We took an hour carriage tour of the city which was quite interesting. 

We did a little browsing in the marketplace, toured the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon and specifically "the dungeon" basement which was used as a prison among other things over the years.  The architecture there was quite impressive. The old homes are beautiful and the gardens behind many of the homes are really nice! 

Gravesites of two SC politicians, one of them a signer of the US Constitution and one a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Our lunch spot in Charleston.



The building we toured and all the uses it has served over the years.



 

We did in fact enjoy the pool each day at the Charleston Marina...it was so hot with heat indexes in the low 100's....the water felt so good!  And being across from Charleston made for nice sunsets and the water taxi was very convenient to get to Charleston...a good stop!

On Tuesday we cast off lines at 5:45 AM.  Yes AM.  We wanted to leave before the currents were again ripping through the marina and high tide was at 4 AM so the currents were building pretty good even by then.  We left without incident thanks to my expert crew which included Mike and Susan too!  Thanks for getting up early! 
Getting ready to go.

We had two freighters to deal with as we left, so we just stayed outside the marked channel with plenty of depth for us.

 

 

Mike cooked us all a great breakfast along the way!

Relaxing along the way, although it was VERY HOT.

 

 

A few flies to battle along the way.  Mike is now a "marked man" in the fly community!

It was a 64 mile trip over to Georgetown Harborside Marina so we arrived around 1:30 and were off touring the city within an hour. A nice little harbor here.

It was HOT! We took the tour of the Kaminski House that was built in the mid 1800's and of course added on to and remodeled over the years.  But the period furniture is largely intact inside.  The last owners gifted the home to the city and stipulated nothing could be sold so there are really interesting things in the home. The joggling board is a bench type seat that was supposed to be more comfortable for back problems as it "gives".    It was developed as an exercise device and is supposed to be painted "Charleston green" like this one.  We saw a number of these on porches throughout the city on our walks.

Well worth the tour.

This 500 year old live oak.

 

 

Here are the resurrection ferns that grow on the live oaks after a rain.  They go dormant when dry and "resurrect" after a rain.  They just grow out of the bark of the trees.  Interesting.

Later, we went to the Alfresco Bistro for dinner and it was a very good meal.  We got there a little early and were the only ones inside so we were a little skeptical but the food was great and others did come in as we were ordering and eating.  We recommend it.
On Wed we took a walking tour of the old homes, the Maritime Museum and dodged pop up thunderstorms!  We even played a few hands of euchre waiting out the storms.

We left for our walk after a lightning laden storm in the morning and beat one back to the boat in the afternoon.  For lunch we went to the Townhouse Restaurant and it was also very good.  Some nice restaurants in this town!  But later in the evening we grilled some potatoes, asparagus and chicken and enjoyed ourselves on board for a change of pace.  We did have a small visitor while grilling too!

It was so nice to have Susan and Mike aboard for five days catching up on things back in Michigan and exploring new cities with them!  Thanks for making the long drive to SC to join us!!!  We really enjoyed the short time we had with you.

Thursday morning Enterprise picked Susan and Mike up and they went on to retrieve their vehicle and do some family visiting in the area as well as on their way back to Michigan.  We took a walk to the grocery store, Julie did laundry and Tom dug around under the floor trying to find the source of an unpleasant odor. This has been an "off and on" issue since we owned the boat.  The guest stateroom air conditioner is also under the bed and seems to draw this odor into the stateroom at times.  Fast forward to Friday.  Tom crawled a little deeper into the bilge and found one of the hoses going into the holding tank that was working loose around the seal into the tank.  Pushed it back in and Sat morning no odor!  It is always nice when an issue is just a minor one.  I do wish I were a little smaller at times trying to squeeze into some of the nooks and cranny's where  mechanical stuff is located.....

We left fairly early Friday morning and it was much cooler than our travel day with Mike and Susan on Tuesday.  Ran Sum Escape up to speed  when we could to try to beat the forecasted late afternoon thunderstorms for Little River SC, our destination (Myrtle Beach Yacht Club Marina) 60 miles away. 

Saw a very large gator along the way...sorry no pictures as we were moving along quickly at that point.  Another derelict boat along the way....

This portion of the ICW includes the very narrow, rock lined section called "the Rockpile" in all the cruising guides.  We were a little apprehensive about this section as we talked to a gentleman in Georgetown who is from SC and just wrecked a prop going through there a couple days ago.  They recommend a sécurité call  on the VHF when traversing this section but given light traffic we did not do this (nor did we hear anyone else doing one).  We actually followed a 50' local boat through the narrowest portion which is the last portion just before the Little River swing bridge.  The picture says it all....so where are the rocks at high tide?....Just below the surface!!!

 Here we are approaching the Little River Swing bridge, the end of the narrow channel.

 

We arrived around 1PM and the dockhand directed us to our slip near the pool and office.  Here is a view from just outside the harbor.   The faux lighthouse is quite a nice touch.

A nice marina with no currents in the harbor.  We washed and tidied up the boat, showered and went to dinner at the on site restaurant, The Officer's Club.  We plan to stay here three days as we like to be off crowded waterways on the weekends whenever we can.